The key to life is running and reading.

Books worth reading once are worth reading twice; and what is most important of all, the masterpieces of literature are worth reading a thousand times.

A dose of poison can do its work but once, but a bad book can go on poisoning minds for generations.

If minds are truly alive they will seek out books, for books are the human race recounting its memorable experiences, confronting its problems, searching for solutions, drawing the blueprints of its futures. To read books is one way of growing along with one’s fellows-in-growth.

Books come at my call and return when I desire them; they are never out of humor and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present in review before me the events of past ages; others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. These teach me how to live, and those how to die;

I hate books, for they only teach people to talk about what they do not understand.

Any book which is at all important should be reread immediately.

Paperbacks blink in and out of print like fireflies. They also, as older collectors have ruefully discovered, fade and fall apart even more rapidly than their owners.

Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in good stead under every variety of circumstances and be a source of happiness and a cheerfulness to me during life and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for

Do give books, religious or otherwise, for Christmas. They’re never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.